


you get what you deserve.

by enjolrolo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Recovery, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14716370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolrolo/pseuds/enjolrolo
Summary: Bruce Banner takes some time to unwind and take care of himself for once. He doesn't regret it.





	you get what you deserve.

Bruce wouldn’t ever say that causing Ragnarok and barely escaping from an apocalypse-level event on a spaceship was fun. In fact, it was the diametric opposite of fun, as he spent the time leading up to it hyperventilating and nauseous and frantically trying to convince Thor and Valkyrie not to kill all of them by flying through a wormhole named after Satan’s asshole--and then he managed to turn into the other guy after a thoroughly embarrassing seventy-foot drop onto a _rainbow bridge_.

He flew a spaceship, and he went through a wormhole, he allegedly punched a big wolf. So he could check those off the bucket list (maybe not the last one--could he count shit the other guy did? He might as well, there was no other way he could justify checking off “levelling a building with his bare hands”). None of that was fun. And most of the time, Bruce had spent wishing he was anywhere else, somewhere quiet and warm and not full of hundreds of undead warriors.

But afterwards, when he’s un-Greened and catching his breath and changed into clothes someone handed to him, he realizes--he kind of wants to do it again.

 

In no way could Bruce be described as an adrenaline junkie. He normally went out of his way to avoid any activity that could raise his heart rate a few beats, and if anyone had _asked_ if he wanted to fly a ship that the most powerful being in the universe used for orgies--well, he wouldn’t have said yes.

It wasn’t the fireworks and the violent turbulence that sold him on it, however. It was the people he was with.

Which sounds like some corny bullshit, yeah--’the real gift was the friends we made along the way’--but. Thor’s boisterous laugh and Valkyrie’s snappish warnings for Bruce not to fall out of the ship and Thor’s big hands on his shoulders keeping him grounded and Valkyrie’s calm confidence weaving the ship through debris, none of that just because they wanted something from Bruce. None of those things were necessarily awful.

Most importantly, while Thor was definitely lobbying for Bruce to transform and help out, he also seemed perfectly content to let Bruce hang out in the ship while Thor and Valkyrie handled things, which is an important distinction, in Bruce’s book. Valkyrie hadn’t even known who he was, which was incredibly refreshing, it meant that she didn’t _want_ something from him.

He’s had a lot of people use him. He hasn’t had a lot of time to analyze the weird shit that went down with Natasha, but he’s more than sure that it was another one of her experiments in psychological manipulation. The idea that Bruce was so lonely, confused, depressed, stressed-the-fuck-out that he would latch onto the first person who looked at him kindly--he must have looked like a _jackpot_ to a superspy who was too bored to think about the repercussions her bullshit could have on someone’s trust issues.

She’s just the latest in a string of people, going all the way back to his dad--Bruce is super not in the mood to think about _that_ particular area of emotional fuckery, so he quickly moves on--but here, out here in Norway or whatever the fuck, he feels like it could be something different. Like he could belong here, without having to tear his emotional trauma out into the open three times a week to morph into a huge green rage monster for the benefit of others.

 

Most of the Asgardians are spectacularly inept at functioning in human society. There is a lot of mug-smashing, and literal sword-axe-hammer-whatever duels, and adjusting to “primitive” technology like iPhones and--someone gave Thor a Segway, which was an experience. But they’re all learning very quickly, and it’s fascinating to watch.

It takes a few weeks for them to get settled, working out a deal with the local village to help build some more houses--which is surprisingly easy, with all the magic these people get up to. Bruce finds himself agreeing to share a cottage with Thor and Valkyrie (and Loki? Though he isn’t there that often), instead of going back to New York and dealing with all that potential stress. It’s nice here. Bruce has never gotten this much time to explore beautiful landscapes like this one, while being on the run, and he’s loving it.

It’s not just the independence that he appreciates. It’s Thor’s attempts at scrambling eggs that have set off the fire alarm three times this week. It’s Valkyrie sharpening knives with her boots up on the table so she can argue with whoever tells her to move them. It’s the silent solidarity of Bruce and Valkyrie both being awake at three in the morning because of nightmares, him making tea and her drinking something a lot stronger. It’s the fact that he can plead, “I’m freaking out,” and he doesn’t get a laugh or a sarcastic response or a shove, he gets Thor taking his hand and telling him he’s okay and breathing at an aggressively normal pace so that he’ll follow along.

 

He gets boundaries.

Bruce starts working at a research lab in town, under an assumed name. He’s sure that most of the scientists know who he is, but they play along, because they seem to understand.

He gets a workspace where he can work by himself or with a group, if he chooses. Nobody bursts into his lab unannounced, yelling about new discoveries, but they don’t necessarily leave him alone, either--his halting Norwegian gets a few laughs at first, but they work around it as much as possible.

At the new house, the others give him his space. He isn’t one for conversation, and Valkyrie isn’t either, and Loki does his own weird shit that Bruce doesn’t try to understand, and Thor is busy being a king, or whatever (though he doesn’t really know how to rule a sovereign nation, he’s wobbling along with help from Heimdall). Every week, Thor still drags all of them into the living room to watch TV and have dinner, for better or for worse, because his new job as king of Asgard is running him ragged and he needs some chill time. Bruce can sympathize.

Nobody pushes him to open up, or try and talk to what he’s feeling, even when one of them finds him with his head down on the kitchen table, trying not to cry, or watching the news and hyperventilating, or lying on the living room floor and staring at nothing for hours at a time. They get it. And none of them want to talk about things either. It’s a nice mutual avoidance of emotion.

 

He gets understanding.

Valkyrie slams the cabinet doors a lot. She’s still adjusting to a different level of gravity, and she’s also generally pissed off, and she’s more often than not a little tipsy. Bruce knows all of these are valid reasons not to take care to be somewhat careful with the cabinets. But.

Doors slamming and plates banging and drawers crashing shut don’t bring the best memories for Bruce. In fact, they bring the actual _worst_ memories, of someone shouting at him or throwing him against the wall or wrecking his lab or cocking a gun--

He doesn’t want to get into that.

One particular morning, he’s resorting to coffee to keep him awake, and he hears Valkyrie kick the pantry door shut behind him, and he jumps, sloshing the beverage all over the counter and himself, hissing at the heat splashing up onto him.

“Jumpy,” Valkyrie says.

Bruce reaches for a paper towel and mops up some of the coffee, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry.”

She looks from the pantry to the coffee to Bruce, who might look a little panicked, and says, “Huh,” like she’s just now putting something together.

Bruce shifts from one foot to the other, not sure what she’s getting at.

“I’ll. Um, be more gentle with the, uh,” She gestures vaguely, “doors. In the future.”

Bruce blinks at her. “Oh--thanks.”

Valkyrie nods.

He smiles. “I appreciate it, really,” Bruce says.

She rolls her eyes, but her lips are curving up at the sides. “Yeah, it’s--look, don’t make it a thing.” And she’s gone.

 

He gets respect.

Bruce doesn’t realize that he’s a go-to for medical attention, that most of these people don’t know what 911 is--well, in Norway, he’s pretty sure the number for the ambulance is 113 or something. Either way, he finds a trio of kids banging on his door at three in the afternoon, one of them being the one who knocked, and another supporting the third, whose face is scrunched up in pain.

“He broke his leg,” the first kid says, a girl who looks like she’s around thirteen--though, in reality, she’s probably like six hundred years old. “You’re a doctor.”

“Yeah. I’m a doctor,” Bruce says, unfreezing from his brief moment of _what the hell are these kids doing here instead of running to their parents, who are probably just as capable of setting a broken bone_ and moving aside to allow them to come in. He doesn’t even think to protest that he’s not really _that_ kind of doctor, or think of driving the kid to the emergency room--none of them have any insurance or identification information yet, and most Asgardians aren’t fans of the doctor’s office, for some reason. “Here, just. Lay him down on the couch, alright, I’m gonna get some ice.”

He runs to the kitchen to retrieve a few ice packs, wraps them in hand towels, and then washes his hands before running back. The kid with the broken leg is stretched out on the couch, his broken leg extended, his eyes glazed over and clearly in some level of shock. The other two kids are hovering around him, the girl trying to find something to do to help and the boy who’d carried him holding his hand.

“What’s your name?” he asks the girl.

She tears her gaze away from her hurt friend to look at him. “Ama.”

“And you?” he asks the boy holding the injured one’s hand.

“Riodhr.”

“Okay. Ama, can you go tell his parents what happened?” Bruce places the ice packs along the fracture, trying to get some swelling down. It’s not a life-threatening fracture, but it’s definitely not comfortable, judging by the low groan that the kid has been emitting for a few minutes now. The leg looks like it was wrenched in the wrong direction at the knee.

Riodhr shakes his head before Ama can respond and says quietly, “He doesn’t have any.”

Bruce lets out a breath. It makes sense, statistically speaking, considering how many people Hela had murdered over the course of her coup d’état. “Alright. Keep holding his hand. Ama, hold his other leg down, please. I’m going to reset the bone. What’s his name?”

“Halden,” Riodhr says.

“Thank you. Halden, this is going to hurt for just a minute, and then it’ll feel better. Deep breath in, and let it out when I say, alright? In,” Bruce says, and gets the right grip on the leg. “Out,” he directs, and as Halden exhales, he twists.

Halden cries out, and Ama sways next to Bruce. Bruce puts the bottle of painkillers in Riodhr’s hand, and then straightens up to catch Ama by the elbow and move her to an armchair before she passes out.

"Deep breaths,” he tells her. “I’ll get some water for you, alright? Don’t try to get up too fast.”

He checks on Halden, who seems to be coming out of the shock that he’d been in previously. Riodhr has given him some of the painkillers, and while he looks a little pale himself, he’s going to be fine. They’re good kids.

Bruce waits until he’s in the kitchen to rub at his face and take some calming breaths and pour himself some water, and doesn’t realize he isn’t alone until Thor clears his throat and Bruce almost drops his glass.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Thor says. He glances out to the sitting room, where Halden is sitting up and Ama has some color back in her face. “You handled that extremely well.”

“Oh, well, thanks.” Bruce fills up another glass to take back to Ama. He doesn’t think Thor’s being that earnest--as if a Norse god could be that impressed with basic first aid--until he looks up and Thor is watching him with a serious look.

“You have a gift,” Thor says, and Bruce has to take a second to process that fully. “Do you need any assistance?”

“Yeah, we should take him to a healer. Or whatever you guys, call it, I don’t know--”

“Yes, ‘healer’ is appropriate.”

“Okay, yeah. I don’t know why they didn’t go there first,” Bruce says.

Thor shrugs. “They trust you. Because I do.”

Which shouldn’t make Bruce feel like someone’s taken a hammer to his chest. But it does.

 

He gets _peace._

Bruce starts taking longer walks. Their new Asgardian community is out by the coast, so he can walk on the beach, and while it’s freezing cold and grey most of the time, even at six in the morning, it’s calm.

It’s been years since he’s been able to roam free like this--actually, he doesn’t think there was _ever_ a time when he didn’t have to constantly be looking over his shoulder (in theory, he could find plenty to worry about, he could get on a plane and go back to New York, he could go back to the research he had been conducting two years ago, he could paint a huge target on his chest and belly-dance in Ross’s front yard, but. He's not planning on doing that anytime soon).

Mornings after he wakes up from awful night terrors, or even evenings when Loki says some bullshit and he decides he needs a break, he takes a walk, either alone or with Thor tagging along, and he doesn’t worry about someone sniping him. He just breathes sea air and thinks about the whack shit he's gotten up to in the last two years and relaxes.

It won’t last forever, but for right now, he’s content to have his biggest worry be whether or not Valkyrie stole his leftovers (the answer’s usually yes). He’s earned a break.

**Author's Note:**

> fuck infinity war taika waititi is skinny


End file.
